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Thanks for this Memory

Dear Bay Weekly:

Life had dealt me a blow, and I was still reeling when Sandra Martin and Bay Weekly launched me into my next career. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and beset with unrelenting fatigue, I’d had to quit my beloved job as a high school biology and environmental science teacher two years before. Jobless and wondering what was next, I followed a gut feeling to a week-long writing conference, spending the following year working on a manuscript under the guidance of a wonderful professor. In the end, the story was not destined for publication, but months of constant rewriting had improved my skills. Without readers, however, I still refused to call myself a writer.

In 2005, I wrote an essay about an autumn paddle on Mattaponi Creek that my husband convinced me to send to Bay Weekly as a Bay Reflection. To my amazement, Sandra accepted it with only two minor changes. The following spring, she accepted a reflection on the return of the osprey and invited me to join the Bay Weekly team of writers putting together the supplement 101 Ways to Have Fun. We still had not met.

When I did meet Sandra at a luncheon in the Deale office to launch 101 Ways, I marveled both at her enthusiasm and her phenomenal memory as she introduced the writers, adding details about each one. I eagerly accepted assignments that took me all over Anne Arundel and Calvert counties looking for places to find wildflowers and birds, to paddle and hike. I also researched and wrote about military band concerts, seafood festivals, children’s theatre and drive-in movies. I had lived in Annapolis for seven years; writing these Ways, I realized how much I had been missing.

Encouraged to try my hand at feature writing, I spent the summer researching and writing three. I abandoned one after several editing attempts, had the second published the following year after many rewrites, but was thrilled to have the third accepted immediately and put on the cover (“Long Strides Toward a Cure,” Vol. xiv, No. 39: Sept. 28, 2006). With Sandra as mentor, critic and advocate, I now, when someone asks, call myself a writer.

Dotty Holcomb Doherty, Annapolis

Happy Birthday

Dear Bay Weekly:

Fifteen years, and I have been sending you press releases [from the Shady Side Rural Heritage Society and Captain Salem Avery House and Museum] that entire time! You have always given them good coverage and treated me with warmth and affection. I remember when initially I did not have a computer and ran off my press releases on a copy machine and hand delivered them to your office. Now it seems more impersonal to just send them via Email. Your success reflects the extraordinary talent of you and your staff. Thank you for being there for me all those years, and cheers for the future!

Mavis Daly, Shady Side

Earth Day Answer: Alternative Energy

Dear Bay Weekly:

Nuclear power is not the energy answer, nor will it help America achieve energy independence. The real answer to the energy crisis, especially in Maryland, is alternative energy. Wind, solar and geothermal energy will help both the energy crisis and the climate crisis, while also producing jobs to sustain our neighbors.

Apparently converting 20 percent of Maryland’s energy to renewables by 2022 is a daunting task. But building a nuclear power plant that could endanger at least 3.1 million people in Maryland is an acceptable alternative.

Hattie Quick, Baltimore

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